Abstract

D'ALMEIDA, Leonardo Augusto Guerra; CANAL, Cláudia Patrocinio Pedroza  and  SOUZA, Jéssica Fernanda. Attentus: Application for attention assessment in early childhood. Rev. psicopedag. [online]. 2022, vol.39, n.119, pp. 185-195. ISSN 0103-8486.  http://dx.doi.org/10.51207/2179-4057.20220016.

Attention is a neuropsychological process that allows selection and an active processing of part of the information received from the environment and it is in development since early childhood. However, we found in Brazil psychological instruments to assess attention from the age of 6 years-old on. Thus, the attention of children between 3 and 5 years-old was evaluated using the electronic instrument Attentus, built up specifically for this research. A number of 38 children participated - 10 children aged 3 years-old, 17 aged 4 years-old, and 11 aged 5 years-old. This research was descriptive, with qualitative and quantitative data analysis and interpretation. The instruments used were Columbia Mental Maturity Scale (EMMC) and the Attentus, which evaluated three aspects of the attention: surveillance, scanning and divided attention. Data from the EMMC showed results above average in terms of percentiles and mental age for the three age groups. The analysis of the entire group in Attentus showed higher values in the variables like touches, average time of reaction, hits, possible hits, percentage of hits and score in the scanning task, probably because it involves active search. While in the variables omissions, execution errors and percentage of errors, the highest values were observed in task of divided attention, probably due to the greater difficulty of the task. The age group analysis showed, as well as in EMMC, a score increase according to an increase in age, showing an attentive evolution during cognitive development. Thus, it was possible to evaluate and analyze attentional aspects, demonstrating the feasibility of future work with Attentus.

Keywords : Attention; Preschool; Evaluation of Research Programs and Tools; User-computer interface.

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